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How to Make a Museum Hip Hop Series

Tonight marks the launch of Through the Mic: LACMA x Hip Hop, a new monthly concert series taking place on the third Thursday of every month from May to October, co-curated by LACMA and hip hop artist Murs. The inaugural show—3MG, aka Murs, Scarub, and Eligh—is sold out. But you can buy tickets now for next month’s performance, Dumbfoundead and Medusa. Jason Gaulton, who heads LACMA’s Muse programs, details how the concert series came about.

Step 1: Dream It
It’s the classic L.A. story, kind of. Maybe not Boy meets Girl, but Museum meets Rapper. We teamed up with Murs a few months ago to create the first live music series dedicated to hip hop at a major arts institution. Now, it's ready to launch.

Step 2: Name It
Through the Mic stems from hip hop’s mode of expression. Microphones are to hip hop as brushes are to painting. The relatively simple tool unlocks a world of gripping truth, vivid imagination, and a wide range of emotion. Life stories bad and good take on greater meaning when amplified and accompanied by a beat. They become more than words; the mic makes them anthems.

Step 3: Frame It
Through the Mic is not only about hip hop—it’s also a celebration of Los Angeles. The genre is the perfect showcase for our city’s talent, diversity, and spirit. Through the Mic’s performers span L.A.’s various neighborhoods, each bringing unique sounds and messages.

Step 4: Place It
Location. Location. Location. LACMA happens to have one of the best. The stage set up in front of Chris Burden’s Urban Light gives any outdoor venue this side of the Hollywood Bowl a run for its money. The 202 streetlamps provide an incredible backdrop in the heart of the museum. Hip hop will have never looked so good.

In 1989, at the age of 72, Noah Purifoy left Los Angeles and moved to Joshua Tree, California. Over the next 15 years, Purifoy would transform a barren ten-acre parcel of desert, punctuating it with more than 120 large-scale sculptures composed entirely of junk—several of which are on view in "Noah Purifoy: Junk Dada."

Read more, and follow our series of posts chronicling the artist’s life and work on Tumblr: http://bit.ly/1LVs1Bd